10NL tricky river spot - against Adam Jones??

Encountered someone by the username of @w34z3l over on 888 at the 10NLz game last Friday night. I am going to assume it's him so would be fun if he could chime in on his thought process (and why he was playing 10NLz?)

No HUDs allowed in the 888 zoom games. At some point I made the mistake of asking if he was Adam Jones (no reply) so he might know that I knew that he's far better than me but that I'm a student of the game :') anyway, here goes.

1) I figured Adam would 3-bet a polarized range preflop. Would I be correct there? I wanted to keep his (semi-)bluffs in his range so just called his 3-bet and realized I'm at the absolute top of my calling range. I like to do this against better players as to avoid tricky spots.

2) Flop check-call pretty standard. Would continue too with 99-JJ as well as my Xx combos and .

3) When he checks back turn I didn't really know what to make of it. At the time it felt a bit suspicious, but not sure if this can be backed up with reason. Would he ever checkback nut flush or an overpair? I think he's fairly likely to checkback Xx though as he probably doesn't have enough fold equity against my range of overpairs and made flushes, and he could fold out : Xx. Probably talking nonsense but that went through my head as I was playing.

4) Now on the river I'm in a value mindset but in retrospect I'm not really sure what I'm going to get value from. He'd have to hero me with Xx or magically check back 99-JJ (if he 3bets those pre) on the turn. I think it would be better to check-call.

5) Getting raised on the river was annoying (and plain rude to be honest). So I was thinking KK and AA sometimes and checked back flushes on the value side. On the bluff side a portion of Xx and... yeah that's it. Figured I would be right 20% of the time to warrant a call, especially while holding . But not sure if it should go into my bet-calling range and I should save that for my flushes.

Would love to hear y'alls thoughts. Decided to share more of my thoughts as usual: hopefully you can spot some leaks in my thought processes at each point.

Comments

betting half pot on turn and checking back river would be better than betting out river. by betting the river you open yourself up to a very high xR frequency. He can rep both the flush and the 8 much better than you can. Even if he is bluffing its a -EV call, nothing you can really do but fold. You have no straight blockers and he can easily do this with A5 as well

betting half pot on turn and checking back river would be better than betting out river. by betting the river you open yourself up to a very high xR frequency. He can rep both the flush and the 8 much better than you can. Even if he is bluffing its a -EV call, nothing you can really do but fold. You have no straight blockers and he can easily do this with A5 as well

I think you misread the hand, I'm OOP so I can't really donk turn or face a check-raise on the river.

Ahh you’re right sorry. Well as played I would fold. Leading would be bad. Maybe check call on the river but it’s hard to find any bluffs here. I personally would 4 bet out of position because this will narrow his range but flatting is not bad.

If this was actually Adam Jones, don’t think he is ever check raising 99-JJ here. Kings and aces normally call a bet too. Tough fold but I think it’s the right play

What you are missing is he is raising a runout and a specific river card that favors you.

Just adding a couple of things to this.

Hero bets 18.2 BB, CO raises to 40.4 BB, Hero ?

Do you think Adam would "bluff" by basically min raising, giving you 5:1 on a call that favors you on the river?

1) I figured Adam would 3-bet a polarized range preflop.

If he is polarized, How many does he do this with? Hard to give him Axo when polarized range is mostly Axs right?

Some other points.
1) Against an aggressive 3 bettor you should have a plan postflop or a 4 betting range.
2) if your going to flat QQ here, I think you can also flat KK and AA. There is not much of a difference. You keep HJ vs CO ranges wide and you can check raise a lot of flops against a villain who over cbets in 3 bet pots. There is 28bb in the middle after the cbet, easy spot to check raise and ship most turns. Balance this with your QQ+ hands and some fd of your own.
3) Notice the small 3 bet sizing but higher effective stacks. This gives you plenty of room to 4 bet bluff to around 25bb. Figure out a range you want to 4 bet bluff with oop. Not sure if wheel aces perform great here, but some suited broadways for sure and a lot of Axs.

In psychology to use an extreme example there is "fight or flight." I'm pretty sure you heard of this before. Are you going to let Adam Jones fucking rape you or are you going to fight?

Apologize for the language, I don't curse much, but thought it was necessary here.

Encountered someone by the username of @w34z3l over on 888 at the 10NLz game last Friday night. I am going to assume it's him so would be fun if he could chime in on his thought process (and why he was playing 10NLz?)

No HUDs allowed in the 888 zoom games. At some point I made the mistake of asking if he was Adam Jones (no reply) so he might know that I knew that he's far better than me but that I'm a student of the game :') anyway, here goes.

Hey what's up =D Can confirm it was me. Can also confirm that you shouldn't have greeted me ;) I don't usually reply at the tables it's not my policy, but I put a tag on you immediately. I have a special tag for guys who know who I am but I don't know who they are. It usually influences the way they play against me, and I can assume they understand certain aspects of my game with a higher frequency than an average unknown.

1) I figured Adam would 3-bet a polarized range preflop. Would I be correct there? I wanted to keep his (semi-)bluffs in his range so just called his 3-bet and realized I'm at the absolute top of my calling range. I like to do this against better players as to avoid tricky spots.

Generally incorrect, mostly depolarized in this spot. I don't recall why I had the 56s, although I do sometimes include polarized holdings with a very low frequency. However, also worth understanding that I deliberately change certain aspects of my strategy vs a player who knows me. Your flat with QQ seems standard imo, especially with the slightly deeper stacks.

3) When he checks back turn I didn't really know what to make of it. At the time it felt a bit suspicious, but not sure if this can be backed up with reason. Would he ever checkback nut flush or an overpair? I think he's fairly likely to checkback Xx though as he probably doesn't have enough fold equity against my range of overpairs and made flushes, and he could fold out : Xx. Probably talking nonsense but that went through my head as I was playing.

Turn check back usually means I have air, it's that simple. If you have been exposed to any of my content I can anticipate a reasonably high frequency of river probes. Besides, even if you don't probe I have the opportunity to overbet river. I don't mind giving the free card, my hand is invulnerable. I generally find players who know me are more likely to spew off rivers on a bluff also (which is why I didn't jam river).

4) Now on the river I'm in a value mindset but in retrospect I'm not really sure what I'm going to get value from. He'd have to hero me with Xx or magically check back 99-JJ (if he 3bets those pre) on the turn. I think it would be better to check-call.

Nearly always a probe bet against everyone. I suppose if you specifically knew my game you should opt to check call, but your line is honestly fine.

5) Getting raised on the river was annoying (and plain rude to be honest). So I was thinking KK and AA sometimes and checked back flushes on the value side. On the bluff side a portion of Xx and... yeah that's it. Figured I would be right 20% of the time to warrant a call, especially while holding . But not sure if it should go into my bet-calling range and I should save that for my flushes.

I wouldn't want to be in this spot either. If you hadn't greeted me I would have instead 3-barrelled (probably easier to fold the river in this case). I've deliberately taken a line which I use at a very low frequency to ensure you can't generate a reliable exploit. Knowing what I know about my own game, it's probably a fold facing the river raise. It's unlikely that I would have a good enough knowledge of your probe-river tendencies to be able to reliably bluff raise here. Besides, I'm well aware that I don't rep value well with this line, looks bluffy even though it is usually not. The hope is that you might even sometimes 3bet ship air over the top - lots of people love the idea of telling their friends how they 3bet bluffed a coach on the river. If it doesn't work out no big deal, if it works, you have some awesome bragging rights for the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, I don't want to diminish the fact that I basically just caught a lucky runout here. But as a small lesson it's basically not a good idea to give away information at the tables unnecessarily. It's a little different in my case being a coach; coming with that responsbility is the agreement that I am going to be sharing certain amounts of data that could end up being detrimental to my winrate. But generally if you know something about someone else at the table, keep it quiet ;)

Anyway, cool hand. I was contracted to make some more core level 3 hands, so I think we'll include this one in video format.